Quotes About Underground

People realized there was a way to do it in a very underground, low-key way that still counted and was still important," says Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo. "People got this idea that ultimately what mattered was the quality of what you were doing and how much importance you gave to it, regardless of how widespread it became or how many records it sold.

We" was a sprawling cooperative of fanzines, underground and college radio stations, local cable access shows, mom-and-pop record stores, independent distributors and record labels, tip sheets, nightclubs and alternative venues, booking agents, bands, and fans that had been thriving for more than a decade before the mainstream took notice.

Flipside, Maximumrocknroll, and Forced Exposure—but there were literally hundreds of smaller zines that collectively framed the indie aesthetic.

Sonic Youth recognized two things: One, that without substantial radio airplay, press was the main promotional outlet for underground bands, and two, that underground music fans paid particular attention to music criticism.

The indie underground made a modest way of life not just attractive but a downright moral imperative.

Underground rock protested not just with its sound but in the way it was recorded, marketed, and distributed

The Buttholes, always up for a good submersion in the fetid cesspools of the psyche, were a reminder that the underground was still the rightful preserve of some of the culture's most bizarre manifestations

an underground music network was starting up: record stores that championed independent labels were beginning to appear in major cities and college towns, college radio was noticing the music, fanzines were flourishing, and an underground railroad of venues was assembling.

The funny thing was the album was a fairly complete compendium of the music the industry had been largely ignoring for the previous ten years, synthesizing underground bands like Black Flag, Hüsker Dü, Dinosaur Jr, the Pixies, Scratch Acid, the Melvins, and others. But it made that sound palatable to the mainstream with strong melodies and slick production

For a while, there effectively was no underground. "I thought that was the end of what you might call punk rock," says Peter Prescott, "because punk rock is unique and individual and is not for everybody. So almost by definition it can't be popular.

a tunnel entrance.

The past had a way of coming back up out of the ground. Always right below your feet.

Out of the blue and into the black. That's what he said going on a tunnel mission was. We called it the black echo.

What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power. Nothing much of lasting value ever happens at the head table, held together by a familiar rhetoric. Those who already have power continue to glide along the familiar rut they have made for themselves.

If there's a more helpless feeling than trying to reach someone you love who's trapped underground, I don't know it.

We communicate like the burrows of foxes, in silence and darkness, under ground. We are undermined by faith and love.

I take the subway four times a day, or close to it. I just love the subway! My grandfather worked as an electrician when they were digging the subway.

According to Time Out magazine, at any given moment there are 600,000 people on the Underground, making it both a larger and more interesting place than Oslo.

those befuddling networks of pedestrian subways that compel you to surface every few minutes like a gopher to see where you are.

The Cellar had been founded by Presidential Decree in order to legally do the illegal.

It's known as the Cellar

Es lo que hay bajo el suelo lo que crea aquello que está por encima de él. Lo que no se ve es lo que crea lo que se ve. Y eso ¿qué significa? Significa que si quieres cambiar los frutos tendrás que modificar primero las raíces

tunnel into Ocher Bar, the long cavern below the Counting Room.

There were whole secret sections that did their work underground then, and sections of the London tube system were used as part of it. There were also plenty of bunkers and tunnels built for use in the event of an invasion.", FADE by Kailin Gow